


Budapest

by Enchantable



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Canon Disabled Character, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-07 05:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19202782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: Love is for children, I owe him a debt.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt: Prompt: Malex as Avengers... with romantic scenes and great action or detective work...

“He’s supposed to be dead.”

“Uh huh.”

“I sent you in to kill the world’s greatest assassin. So do you want to tell me why he’s sitting in my break room?”

Michael shrugs. He actually doesn’t want to explain himself. It’s been a long couple of months. And an especially long couple of days. And one very long flight from Budapest. Michael really just wants to shower and go to bed, maybe stretch out a bit after days of playing cat and mouse across some very tall buildings. Really he’d like to clean out his ears. But Nick Fury is peering at his ear canals like he’s checking to make sure the damn things are in and on and Michael doesn’t want to have this debate again.

“I offered him a deal.”

“You offered him what?!” Nick demands, “You don’t offer amnesty to someone whose killed that many people. You kill him like I tell you to.”

“He’d be a great asset,” Michael says, “he knows everything about our enemy and he’s willing to talk. He’d like to help.”

“Do I want to know how you got him to do that?”

Michael shrugs.

Nick goes into the room and Michael walks over to the window. The sound’s off and Nick’s good enough to turn his back to it, but Alex angles himself so Michael’s got a pretty good view of what he’s saying. He repeats things too. Michael likes him more and more as they spend time together. Of course he liked him already when he was chasing him across rooftops and they were enemies. Alex was always a great fighter. Always kept things interesting and had his own sense of fairness Michael appreciates. He’ll take fairness from enemies. There’s so little of it in the world, he’s not really picky about it. He watches as Alex accepts the offer, whatever that means, and rises up, almost saluting Nick Fury before he shakes his hand instead.

Michael’s sure Alex will blend in fine, but actually feeling comfortable here might take some work.

“I’ll take him to get settled,” Michael says.

“No you won’t,” Nick starts, “did you—“

“Battery’s dead,” Michael tells him, “I’ll just take him.”

He steers Alex out with a hand on the back of his neck.

“My battery’s not dead,” he stage whispers to him as the doors close.

“I heard that!” Nick shouts after them.

Even in the elevator with just the two of them Alex assumes a parade rest. Michael leans back against the wall and folds his arms as the elevator brings them up towards the higher floor. He’s calling it his crash pad for the moment. He’s been focused on the mission for the past year or so, no time really to find a more permanent place. Life’s funny like that. He’s spent years planning to kill a guy and now he’s gotten him a whole new life and is taking him back to his crash pad. Alex looks over at the laugh that leaves his lips and Michael grins.

“I’m just thinking this is gonna be a great inside joke between us,” he says.

“Assuming your boss doesn’t try to kill me in my sleep,” Alex replies.

“Nick’s not like that,” Michael says, “besides, I’ll be there. I’m hard to kill.”

Alex can’t disagree with that.

He even almost smiles.

They get into the bare walled apartment. Michael pretends to check his mail as Alex walks the place. He counts everything with military precision and in about ten minutes Michael’s sure he could fight in any corner of it without the lights. Alex peers out the window, looking for possible escape routes. MIchael shakes his head.

“Sorry about that,” he says, ‘windows don’t even open this high up. There’s a fire escape down the hall.”

“Don’t be,” Alex says.

“Don’t be?”

“Sorry,” Alex tells him, turning to look at him, “I know you prefer heights.”

Michael goes red around the eartips, but reminds himself there’s a reason their cat and mouse game went on for as long as it did. He’s not a fan of people knowing too much about him unless he wants them to. There’s just too much in his past for them to dig through. But once they know it, well, they know it. He can’t do much about it. Alex cares less. It only matters if he’s trying to pass as someone else. Generally speaking, Alex views his past as he views everything else. There’s no bright spots of joy to guard. It simply is. Michael’s pretty sure he thinks he’s going to be killed by either that past or Michael’s boss in the next few hours. Michael’s determined to not let that happen.

“Can I ask you something?” Alex says.

Michael nods.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

It’s the first time he’s asked it. They discussed a lot on the plane but that didn’t come up. It takes a bit for Michael to realize that Alex thinks he’s going to do just that. After everything they did, he can’t blame him. It’s only a slight bit of an ego blow that Alex thinks his former bosses are better than Michael. They clearly aren’t since Alex is in his apartment with a pulse. But Michael guesses that a few heroics on his part can’t really stack up to a lifetime of mental and physical conditioning. Alex is the one who broke free of that. Michael just decides he’s going to have to be a hell of a lot more heroic.

“I guess I got used to you,” he says approaching him, “it’d be kind of boring out there, not looking over my shoulder for you. I’d rather have you where I can see you.”

“I’m a spy,” Alex reminds him as Michael comes to stand next to him, “I’m hard to spot.”

“I have good eyes,” Michael says.

“Hawk like,” Alex teases and Michael presses a hand to his chest.

“Sarcasm too? You might fit in here after all,” he says.

A flicker of doubt echoes on Alex’s face before he stubbornly pushes it away. But Michael’s caught it. He leans closer to Alex so they’re nearly toe to toe.

“You’re gonna be good for the team,” he says, “and the team’s gonna be good for you,” he looks at him seriously, “better than where you were.”

“Anything’s better than that,” Alex says.

“But this will be good,” Michael reiterates, “we’ll be good, working on the same side. The right side.”

Alex is soft right up until the last thing.

“Is there a right side in this?” He says.

“Yeah,” Michael tells him, “ours.”

“Ours,” Alex repeats.

MIchael nods and kisses him.

He’s held off, trying to kill each other and then trying not to get killed hasn’t left much room for anything else. Any quiet moments have been put to better things like eating and sleeping. Necessities. But they’re safe, safer than they’ve been in a while. The gesture takes Alex by surprise and Michael pulls back, searching his face. Alex stares at him in surprise for a moment before he steps forward, pulling Michael back and kissing him. It’s hot and raw and much less practiced than Michael expects, but god if that isn’t what he wants from the spy. Not the practiced or guarded stuff, he wants to see what’s underneath that and can only hope that Alex will let him. For now though, he just kisses him back as the lights of the city come on below them.

He brings Alex to the mattress he’s got on the floor and Alex pulls off his layers and layers of black to reveal the tanned skin underneath. Michael covers his body with his own, dragging calloused hands over perfect flesh. They’re not allowed to have scars where Alex comes from, but defiant Alex has several. Michael brushes his lips to each and every one. The mark on his forehead, on his torso and most of all end of his leg, where flesh meets metal. The tracker’s gone, Michael took it out himself and it’s left an ugly hole in the metal, but everything works. Alex is just that good. Even an organization that prefers bodies without marks on them sees how perfect he is. Alex turns their position and lays him down on the mattress and Michael lets him. If this is Alex’s first night of freedom, he’s willing to give up control for it.

It still takes months after before they can sleep through the nigh and not just in shifts. Alex is still in the shadows, but Michael always manages to keep an eye on him. They manage to keep eyes on each other. Until one day in the middle of an interrogation that Alex thinks is actually kind of laughable in it’s incompetence, the goon hands him the phone.

“What is it? These guys are giving me everything I need,” he says.

“Agent Guerin’s been compromised,” the voice comes through the other end.

Something cold settles in Alex’s stomach.

“I’m on my way.”


	2. Chapter 2

Alex doesn’t speak on the plane ride from his interrogation to HQ.

He’s irritated he has to go to HQ at all. He knows he could analyze the scene through photographs. He’s worked with less. But he’s been told he has to come in. Worse, they are smart enough not to give him anything else. He would tell them all to fuck off and go on his own, but they have resources. And from the little he was told, Michael is under someone’s control. Alex can risk a lot, he will not risk Michael’s mind. He tries not to read into everyone’s looks in his direction, whatever social skills he fakes having are hard to uphold in the face of the fear in his gut. He’s on his feet the moment the plane lands and barely waits for the steps.

“I need to see,” he says.

“Hello to you too,” Nick Fury says, falling into step alongside him, “my day was stressful, thanks for asking.”

Alex know his role in this game. He’s supposed to show Nick Fury that he hasn’t flown off the rails. That he isn’t compromised. It’s astounding how an organization so different from the one he came from manages to be completely the same. Alex know it would be better for him to play the game, but all he can manage is a nod. He wishes that he was compromised in the way that Nick thinks he might be, things would be so much easier that way. He isn’t though. He’s not detached, he’s not unfeeling. Actually he feels dangerously close to tears. Michael prizes his mind, above everything and especially above his body that’s failed him so many times. Now someone has violated that. The world has always seemed to have it out like that for Michael.

Nick doesn’t make him wait and instead takes him to a crime scene.

“What happened?” Alex asks.

“Loki took him.”

Alex arches an eyebrow. Hearing that a Norse God took Michael is surprising. It’s also the kind of outlandish stunt that Michael would pull. Nick Fury doesn’t have hair but if he did, Michael has no doubt more than a few of the grays would be because of Michael. Even amidst all the direness, Nick manages to look momentarily annoyed at the fact that Michael has managed to pull this off and Alex has to fight the urge to smile. Just for a moment. That, in itself, is a comment on Michael. He’s sure that when he vanished, no-one back in the Red Room found it amusing. But even in his own kidnapping Michael manages to make them smile.

Alex moves through the space, looking around at it. Looking at the tape will come later, he wants to see what he can discern before that. He sees Michael’s footprints, he knows how he shifts his weight and one is deeper than the other. Michael is hard of hearing, even his state of the art hearing aides don’t change that he wants to be ready. Alex gets it, though he relies far more readily on his leg. He doesn’t pick up a weapon unless he knows it will serve him. He knows he can trust his prosthetic. Michael has been let down by things far too many times to have blind faith in his hearing aides. Alex traces the path of the footprints, reading their story until he comes of a place where both of Michael’s feet were planted. There’s another set of prints, facing Michael’s.

This is where is happened.

“I want to see the footage,” he says.

“Loki erased the tapes,” Nick tells him. Alex looks at him sharply, “dealing with Norse Gods is not something we planned for.”

“It should have been.”

Nick makes a noise but Alex ignores him. He doesn’t like comparing the two worlds he exists in. He knows this is the only place he has ever truly been happy. But in moments like this, he knows he has to open the past in his head and rely on training that made him a target of this place. Some voice in the back of his mind that sounds like Michael’s cowboy drawl tells him there’s no way in hell the place he comes from would just automatically know a Norse god was going to try and kidnap one of their agents. If they were so all knowing, then Alex would still be with them instead of over here. Even when he’s gone, Michael manages to be a voice of chaotic logic in Alex’s head, cut with the acceptance that Alex has never felt from himself.

“I’m going after him,” Alex says needlessly.

“He’s going to come back,” Nick says.

“That you know?” Alex snaps and the accusation in his tone almost makes Nick smile, if nothing else it tells him Alex isn’t compromised.

“His brother is here,” Nick says, “so we’re pretty confident,” his smile widens as Alex’s stomach does an odd flip flop thing, “so’s your old pal Maria,” he continues, “and a few others.”

Alex frowns, which only makes Nick smile wider.

A few months ago Alex was sent to observe Maria. His observations were that she was wildly self destructive, text book narcissistic and definitely not a good fit for the team Nick was talking about. No matter what she could do with that armor of hers. Nick had thanked him for his recommendations and in a move that would do Michael proud, he had just gone ahead and done whatever the hell he wanted. Actually Michael and Maria would get along or try to kill each other, he wasn’t sure which.

“They can handle Loki,” he says, “Guerin's mine.”

“You want to tell them that or should I?”

Alex fights the urge to freeze up. He doesn’t like things being so out in the open about himself. Even Maria didn’t know his full name and he worked for her for the better part of a year. Having the world know he would drop everything to save Michael is not something he’s comfortable with. Not on any level. Nick knows it too, but he offers the challenge all the same and Alex can feel the testing he’s doing getting on his last nerve. He looks at Nick.

“I’m not compromised,” he says.

“I didn’t say you were,” Nick replies. He sighs when Alex raises an eyebrow, “I need to know if you’re ready to be part of the team.”

“No,” he says flatly, “not while Michael compromised.”

He chooses his words carefully. He might want Michael back, but they have entered a new world and he can’t be sure that’s an option anymore. The idea makes him sick but he know in his bones that Michael would rather die as himself than hurt people while he’s being enslaved. Michael prizes his freedom. It’s one of the few things he prizes and one of the few he’s fought for, for purely selfish reasons. Alex has never seen selfishness as a bad thing. He thinks it’s brave that Michael would throw away what safety he could have had for his own freedom, instead of just accepting that he deserved the abuse. Alex accepted that and it destroyed some part of him he knows he will never get back.

He cannot let that happen to Michael.

He won’t.

Nick watches him before accepting this with a nod. Despite everything, Alex respects the man at the very least. He believes he has all of their best interests at heart. Alex only cares about what’s best for Michael and they both know it. There’s no point in arguing otherwise. It’s best they establish that up front so when he prioritizes Michael, it’s not a surprise.

“Well come meet the potential future team,” Nick says instead, “Maria’s been sassing me all morning, I can’t wait to shock her into silence.”

“You knew she would do that,” Alex points out as they walk down the hallway.

Nick gives him a look and mutters something under his breath that sounds like a name.

Alex doesn’t spare a thought for who Carole might be, he just puts it away with the other information he collects on this organization. It’s not that he doesn’t trust them, it’s that Michael’s reckless and impulsive. And good. So good. He inevitably gets himself into trouble and Alex keeps everything can that will let him get to him in those moments. His priority is always Michael. Alex hates the debt he owes him, the debt he keeps getting further in when it comes to him.

Not that Michael has realized that.

It doesn’t matter.

It’s Alex’s ledger and he intends to clear it, no matter the cost.


End file.
